Cape Town residents urged to occupy Wale street at Western Cape Sopa

Premier Helen Zille speaking during the State of the Province. File picture Cindy Waxa/AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY/ANA

CAPE TOWN - The ANC in the Western Cape on Wednesday called on residents from across Cape Town to occupy Wale Street on Friday to hear “the real state of the Western Cape government under the administration of the DA."

Premier Helen Zille is set to deliver her final State of the Province Address (Sopa) at the Western Cape Provincial Parliament.

During her Sopa, the premier will outline the Western Cape government's achievements in recent years, as well as progress made on the Provincial Strategic Plan (PSP) and Western Cape government's "Game Changers".

ANC Western Cape head of elections, Ebrahim Rasool said the ANC plans to launch its manifesto and announce itself ready to govern the province.

“The idea is that from 9:30 on Friday morning outside the provincial legislature, the real state of the province will be described and the African National Congress will launch its manifesto and announce itself ready to govern the Western Cape after the 8 of May,” he said at a press conference held at Constitution House in Cape Town.

ANC provincial secretary, Faiez Jacobs, who also attended the conference said: “This year we are going to demonstrate with the people of the Western Cape the real state of our province and it is going to be not a whitewash, we are going to get people to reflect the reality of accounts and not from the ANC perspective but from the people’s perspective, so occupy Wale street is the hashtag that we are going to use.

“Eviction is a big thing, they evicting everybody, they evicting Safa at Athlone, they evicting our farmworkers, they evicting our people at Bokaap, they evicting everybody. It’s now the time for the DA to be evicted, so the people of Cape Town will come and evict them. They have messed up on water, they haven't submitted any water plans, housing has been failed and the list goes on.”

Jacobs said employment equity was another challenge facing the Western Cape: "It’s clear that black professionals feel alienated here, coloureds are not skilled enough to be part of employment equity.

“We picking up all of these issues so I think that’s some of the issues that people have raised. We are not going to say these things, we are going to allow communities to. And I think it’s really a platform for people to come together and show what the reality is,” he said.